CD Projekt promises less crunch on Cyberpunk 2077 than The Witcher 3

As developers, fans, and industry figures continue to speak out against crunch in game development, CD Projekt bosses Adam Badowski and Marcin Iwiński have pledged to improve things at the studio. The Witcher 3, now broadly regarded as one of the best games in recent memory, was the subject of a notoriously bad crunch period.

“We’re known – let me be humble for a moment here – we are known for treating gamers with respect,” Iwiński tells Kotaku. “This is what we’ve been working hard toward. And I actually would like for us to also be known for treating developers with respect.” The outlet says CD Projekt proactively reached out to discuss the issues of crunch.

To that end, Iwinski says that studio plans to push its “non-obligatory crunch policy” harder through the end of Cyberpunk 2077 development, and adds that “we’ve been communicating clearly to people that of course there are certain moments where we need to work harder – like I think the E3 demo is a pretty good example – but we want to be more humane and treat people with respect.”